


Starshards and Mirrorlight

by SecondStarfall (beantiger)



Series: The Second Starfall Stories [45]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angels, Asexuality, Assassination, Attempt at Humor, Banter, Childhood Friends, Childhood Trauma, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Dragons, Eyes, F/F, F/M, Fantasy, Fatherhood, Female Friendship, Ficlet Collection, Flashbacks, Gen, Kings & Queens, LGBTQ Character, Lesbian Character, M/M, Marriage, Medieval, Microfic, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Original Universe, Orphans, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Siblings, Stillbirth, Talking Animals, Thoughts of Infanticide (but not actual), Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, Werewolves, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24692686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beantiger/pseuds/SecondStarfall
Summary: The dragons, it is said, may hold a conversation for centuries. We humans, on the other hand...***Drabbles, ficlets, and vignettes in theSecond Starfalluniverse. Just when you thought it couldn't get any shorter.
Relationships: Original Character(s)/Original Character(s), Original Female Character(s)/Original Male Character(s), Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: The Second Starfall Stories [45]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582975
Kudos: 3





	1. MOCKING

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome! Sometimes I write teeny-tiny _Second Starfall_ scenes that don't fit in larger narratives. Generally, it's 3-6 of them based around a common theme, word, or prompt. Learn a thing or two about your faves and enjoy! I'll try to update this at least once a month, but probably more.
> 
> If you're new to SecStar, I extremely do not recommend beginning with these, unless you want a feel for my writing style. Head over to [the beginning of the series.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21990349)
> 
>  **SUGGESTED REREADING:** Too many to name. I recommend clicking on the character tags above when applicable, if you're curious/need to remind yourself of the details. I try to tag all the stories for easy reference!
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨

**I.**  
In the town of Kar Tor, few mock the failed silversmith Taaron Miphariin—not within earshot, and not behind closed doors. Only a fool ridicules a witch, even in private, and the most stringent skeptic would confirm Taaron’s magical nature. Her lavender hair emits a supernatural light, and it parts the forge-smoke like a delta. When she burns herself—always, always, her scarred limbs are a testament to that—each strand shimmers.

Witchcraft, of course.

Why she refuses her calling is anyone’s guess. Her master, her uncle, maintains that it is her choice. If so, she doesn’t seem to know it.

 **II.**  
In the town of Kar Tor, few mock the failed silversmith Taaron Miphariin anymore. But the children did, once, despite knowing the potential of witches like her. Hushed jabs about her orphanhood danced about the streets in small voices, and so Taaron, just eight years old, wept at her uncle’s forge weekly.

Despite her incomprehensible nature, Uncle Fariin believed in her intelligence. Still, he always remained silent as he fixed her tea. You couldn’t convince youth of the potential in anything.

Later, as her peers’ words fade into a scab-like memory, Taaron remembers the scent of jasmine in that silence.

 **III.**  
Soon after the marriage of the royal botanist and the castle’s chief guard, the Althussian queen commissions a portrait of the two. She personally monitors the servants affixing it to the archive’s stony wall. When they finish late into the night, she examines the portrait, sighs, and calls the wives down to converse.

“You made a mockery of my gift,” the queen says.

The very tall guard considers this. “Hm. It wasn’t on purpose, ma’am.”

“Realistically speaking, no one could fit us both in there,” responds the very small botanist, whose forehead features prominently at the bottom of the frame. 

**IV.**  
The years in Althussant have masked the royal botanist’s Kaaminan accent, but it wasn’t always so.

As children, she and the queen—then the princess—played a word game that always, in the end, became an excuse to tease each other. The queen would, for instance, say _pêche,_ and the botanist would respond with something like _pek._ (The Kaaminan language lacks a _ch_ sound.) Then the botanist would talk in the strongest accent she could muster while the queen deciphered her meaning.

“You speak quite well, though, darling,” the princess would always conclude.

“I learned Althussian in school. Full marks.”

“Endearing, honestly.”

 **V.**  
Kalkora Lattar’s earliest memory is that of her youngest sister’s birth. 

They had told Kalkora, then six years old, not to be afraid, because newborns cried at their own arrival and cried for weeks after. A healthy baby (her family said) had the energy to cry.

Yet when the infant Kirra emerged, she _laughed._ That, mostly, is what Kalkora recalls later: the sugary-sick sound of her giggles. 

There in the birthing room Kalkora crossed her arms. “She’s making fun of us.”

“Doesn’t even have the sense to feel sorry she’s alive,” said her eldest sister, lighting a pipe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY:** Kalkora Lattar is voiced by Aubrey Plaza.
> 
> Uncle Fariin is kind-of a thought experiment into what would happen if Uncle Iroh (A:TLA/LOK) never really got over his issues enough to help his nephew. I feel for him, but he's not a useful guy.
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MTJi12E6vJ0TPmtPngG6-EbXLa06Tb0s2-LfWKETzy4/edit?usp=sharing) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://youneedawiki.com/app/page/1eTLPfjSDKXOWAgJqZ9fc7cFh-CpJKigdqr0VPB5DH2g?p=1poOqxYIoKHsU29l2qZT16-eN7Emt4_5e)] ✨


	2. MOTHERLESS

**I.**  
In her adolescence, Taaron Miphariin considers adults something between a nuisance and a constant source of terror.

Her uncle the silversmith has little to say to her, and between his scattered words she finds anxiety. To lock eyes with the elderly neighbors angers her. The mayor’s sister, in her polite greetings, only dredges up suspicion in Taaron’s heart. 

She does not, therefore, mull over her parents’ identities. Zaraar—her mother—was her uncle’s sister, and that is all Taaron cares to know.

Though the Kar Torian children mocked her as an orphan for many years, she enjoys never having met the people who created her. They would only weigh Taaron down with more expectations. They would monitor her for her missteps—and she is already counting them herself.

 **II.**  
Bit by bit the memories of the botanist’s mother and father drop out of her heart: their scent, the color of their eyes, the tenor of their voices. Valériane de la Rue grows older, she passes out of adolescence, and she stops remembering her homeland at all.

Yet from time to time her mind wanders, as is to be expected in a solitary profession. 

When Valériane considers the word _mother,_ she imagines her best friend, her adoptive sister, the Althussian queen. It is a word of strength.

And when the botanist considers _father,_ a witch comes to mind. She recalls lavender hair and silver-skinned hands and the scent of valerian root. Weeping, too—how that witch cried in the years Valériane stayed with her. But the witch was kind. She called Valériane _kachaa, _which meant _little one_ in Kaaminan. __

__Yes, the witch was kind, until she wasn’t._ _

__Valériane wonders if, eventually, she’ll discover that about everyone._ _

__**III.**  
Queen Alexandrine of Althussant had a father, King Alexandre d'Ampère, and a Papa, the Baronen Charron Berbizier. Baronen Charron, who birthed her and fed her from their breast, neither man nor woman. And while Alexandrine cannot bear to think of her Charron—too much of their history carries misery like a child in the belly—she knows her father adored them._ _

__In Althussant, one’s love can truly flow endlessly, like a river from a mountain._ _

__It is this part of her country that Alexandrine cherishes most._ _

__**IV.**  
“Do dragons have mothers?” asks Margot Tarrou on one of her yearly visits to Quellheart Keep._ _

__The great gold dragon Amaderu, supine in the castle courtyard, opens one eye. He is fond of the tulip-farmer’s mother, who maintains a genuine, sincere interest in him. Even when he takes on a more reptilian shape, as he wears now, she seems to enjoy his conversation. Charming._ _

__“In a sense,” Amaderu rumbles, “but by human reckoning, no. I could not write letters to her.”_ _

__“Would you like one? A mother?”_ _

__Amaderu lifts up his head and gazes down at the little woman, who adjusts her spectacles as she gazes back._ _

__“Would it mean,” Amaderu says, “more of those wonderful meat pies?”_ _

__“When I visit, yes.”_ _

__“And the pastries?”_ _

__“Of course.”_ _

__“Gladly, then.”_ _

__He huffs affectionately at her. She huffs as well._ _

__**V.**  
Kirra Lattar has two mothers: the Grand Ladies of the Brightest Sovereignty, queens to witches everywhere. As far as she knows, neither had siblings. Stranger still, she and her sisters are told, repeatedly, not to ask about their grandparents._ _

__As she grows older, curiosity dwells in Kirra’s heart like ticks on a dog’s pelt. But when she questions her eldest sister—who is the one most likely to know these things—she receives riddles, mysteries, puzzles._ _

__“Is it that they were orphans?” Kirra asks one day, searching for clarity. “My friend Taaron is an orphan. There’s nothing wrong with that. I just wonder what it’s like not to have any mothers—”_ _

__“Why would you even wonder? You live it,” Rilka responds._ _

__“What do you mean?”_ _

__“Nothing, Number Twelve.” Rilka sighs. “Nothing at all.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY:** A lot of orphans and parental issues in the SecStar universe. Part of this is because it’s a fairy tale world. Flowers and polar bears have feelings, a witch’s hair glows purple, and you can place a curse on someone just by being jealous at them hard enough. I have to imagine that weird death and weirder disappearances are a part of everyday life in some areas.
> 
> The other explanation is that, of course, this is a universe full of queer folks, and by god if we don’t all have issues with authority and with our ancestors.
> 
> Also, I wonder if Val has a "Mariner's Revenge Song" bubbling up to use against Taaron, should she ever meet her again. I want to say yes, except Taaron would never forget Val, even decades later, and one of Val's virtues is that she could never physically harm anyone. Or maybe that's a flaw. We'll see.
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨


	3. EYES

**I.**  
For almost a year, the werewolf Jeunesse believes her mate doesn’t know she guards her while she sleeps. But Hannah always squints a bit before she loses consciousness, staring back at Jeunesse in the dusk—at those round yellow lanterns, wary and yet full of hard love.

“You want to protect me!” Hannah teases, later. “You want to make sure I’m _safe_ —”

“Yes, yes. Hush.”

“—in the weirdest, most wolfish way possible. Be still, my heart!”

“I’ll eat it out of your chest, if you don’t stop.”

“My sweet hound.”

 **II.**  
Those with the power of true sight possess silver eyes—the same color of fog-cloaked moons. Angels, too, have silver eyes. Thousands of them, sometimes, spotted and draped across their bodies like sordid ribbons. Or so it is said, for how many of us would dare close enough to look?

We can only hope there isn’t a connection between the true sight and those winged mountaintop beasts. We can only hope for coincidences.

But knowing this world—

 **III.**  
Queen Alexandrine d'Ampère’s eyes: violet, wisteria violet, with a bolt of silver through the left iris. Just perceptibly.

Her botanist Valériane: eyes of hazel, like the soil in which she works. Through the right iris, that same bolt of silver, almost as if to match her queen’s.

 **IV.**  
The dragon Amaderu, wearing his man-skin, sips lightly at his afternoon coffee. “Do we have to let swineherds so near to the keep?”

Asks his husband, Galien, “Is your intelligence threatened by a bunch of pigs?”

“No,” Amaderu replies from his cozy spot on the divan. “I think _their_ intelligence is threatened by _mine._ Have you looked into their...porcine gazes? Those dark little pools...they seem angry about something, don’t you think?”

“You are utterly mad.”

“Listen, Sir Farmer. Boars—wild boars I understand. Very salt-of-the-earth, literally. But pigs?” Amaderu scowls, flashing his lengthened canines like daggers. “They know we dragons are hiding something from them. I see it on their faces.”

“What could you possibly hide from a pig, of all things?”

“I am not sure yet.”

 **V.**  
Before his son is born, Loose Mouth Tarrou recounts tales of the eyes beneath the Lionseye Sea. These tales are less coherent than most of his stories—more anecdote-like, built of symbols upon symbols. No beginning, no end, no moral or theme. Simply words on the faces in the water, faces no bigger than one’s palm, monitoring the skies for...what?

“If this is another one of your mermaid escapades…” Margot always mumbles, chuckling as she turns over to sleep.

“It most certainly isn’t. And I did make love to a half dozen of ‘em, that much is true. Sorry, dear wife. I was a young’n then.”

“Very masculine of you.”

“But the eyes, they were something different. Not mermaids. The sentinels, we called ‘em, although the captain always said we were seeing things—except before he died, when he admitted they were there and working for somebody.”

Margot grumbles, pulling a pillow over head. “The same somebody as the flying boars and the star-people?”

“That all happened too, dammit!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY:** Very tired and working on a longer piece about our favorite werewolf Jeunesse (as well as unrelated DnD publications), so here we are for the week. Lore! 
> 
> There was meant to be a part about Kirra and Taaron in here too, but I am just out of energy to write this week, heh. This ebbs and flows, though. I'll bounce back.
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨


	4. TOWERS

**I.**  
The polar bear Toor gazes down at the diamond-walled tower—or rather, its translucent ruins, scattered in the arctic snow like pollen. A shrine to monsters. Beasts. Horrors with wings and far too many eyes. Toor laid waste to it years previous, driving out many of its angelic inhabitants and destroying the rest.

“Go on,” they say, and their nephew, Boon, barrels down the hill towards the tower. He picks up the smallest diamonds and cracks them easily between his claws. Each time, the diamond turns not to dust but to a blood-stained feather as large as his head, which he stuffs into a sack lying across his broad shoulders.

“So it really is all fake,” Boon says, later, as he helps the elderly Toor back to their shared den. “Everything the angels do. Even those diamonds—not real beauty…”

“Indeed. But boil down an angel’s feathers and you get something like metal, almost. And so I can use their leavings to create something true. To repay a debt. That is what matters. Do you remember the address?”

“The Brightest Manor,” their nephew recites. “Brightest Sovereignty, Tengeren Ge. For Kirra Lattar...and the lavender one most of all. What are you making for them?”

“A circlet.”

 **II.**  
No one summons Ferdinand Beaufort to the king or queen. Not ever. It wouldn’t fit his station: while he is indeed the royal cook, he and his servants operate independently. They have for decades. Ferdinand doesn’t even speak to the castellan, who supposedly runs all of Quellheart Keep on a day-to-day-basis. What would anyone need with an old cook?

So when the queen sends a messenger requesting his presence, Ferdinand practically throws himself into the dining hall. It is late at night, and the hall is empty.

Queen Alexandrine says, “Do me a favor, darling Ferdinand—”

Falling to his knees, the cook bows his head to the floor.

“I am sorry to report that if you want my botanist to stop raiding your pantry at midnight, you’re going to want to deliver her food directly to her,” says the queen. Her voice is that of a mourner. “Up in the Blood Tower. She will not come down to the dining hall, and will not be starved out. Please assign a taster to her food—the most trusted servant you know. What happened to my father did not happen in your kitchen, but...”

Ferdinand the cook stares at his queen for a long time. Now she seems less like a radiant sun and more like his own mother, who often carried around a profound sadness. There are creases along the queen’s forehead, beside her eyes, her lips.

 **III.**  
The spires of the Brightest Manor, topped with gold and silver, number thirteen. Each of the twelve Lattar girls has her own, and the last stands as a memorial. 

You see: Koltirra and Tirrot Lattar, the current Grand Ladies, had a son. Their firstborn, the twin of their daughter Rilka, who did not live long past his birth. They do not speak of him—they refuse to speak of him, except to each other. And when they do, they mourn in the thirteenth tower, when they have the time and energy to spread out in sadness.

On one hand, the Grand Ladies do not worry about many of their living children—not even in the years leading up to Second Starfall—because the worst has already happened early on.

On the other, they distantly fear for their youngest. Ah, little Kirra, the thirteenth of their heirs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY:** I had a cool cool Marlesse and Valériane story planned this week, but my insomnia's been up the wall, so...bits! The return of Toor! Our [royal cook](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22076626) _finally_ gets a name! And creepy Lattar shit! Enjoy.
> 
> Next week...the Mar and Val story, with any luck. I've been writing it on my phone from bed at 4am.
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨


	5. MERCY

**I.**  
Loose Mouth Tarrou disappeared one spring on the way to the city of Auradou. When it became clear that he would not return, his wife, Margot, thought of offering their son the truth: that Loose was likely more than a charming mariner with stories bigger than his brain. He was something else. With an emphasis on the _else._ One of the Splendid-folk, she figured, one of those silent and bloody engineers that maintained Althussant.

She heard they stole away people in the night for reasons only known to them. Too, she heard they killed indiscriminately. Just as often, though, her neighbors and farmhands shrugged when pressed the subject. To them, the idea of some Splendid society of ghosts—well, it was all silver teeth and goblin nails. There was work to do.

As was tradition, Loose had never given her a straight answer. Their son Galien deserved one, but—

 _No, no,_ she thinks, years after the ink dries on Loose’s death certificate, years after Galien marries the Queen of Althussant herself. _Galien has already lost his father’s body. I will spare him the memories. He needs that. He always will._

 **II.**  
In Althussant, no concept of divine mercy exists, as, in their worldview, there are no gods to mete it out. An Althussian must have faith in herself and in her neighbors’ good judgement. And so philosophy (as you can imagine) has remained popular at the kingdom’s universities for centuries.

Queen Alexandrine herself has a cluster of mages and scholars who advise her and her lawmakers on topics great and small. These learned folk keep her fair, despite her inclination otherwise. Especially when she thinks of her father’s assassin.

She knows his murderer walks free somewhere. They are likely a noble or work under the auspices of one. By law, when she catches them, there must be a trial. But Alexandrine will still hurt them. Over and over, she will hurt them. She will not stop. She will not want to stop.

 **III.**  
Once upon a time, the werewolf Jeunesse Belrose had a mother who died, and a cub who died, and a mate who died, and a brother who died. She had another cub that she threw away like so much garbage.

Once upon another time, dozens of her brother’s offspring came into her custody. All wolves, all orphans. None stood higher than her kneecap, if they could even stand. A ruthless part of her mind demanded that she drown each one. A mercy, she figured, against the deep hurts of the universe.

But she thought of the moon and the stars and their sweet night-songs. She found homes for the cubs and moved on.

In her gentler middle age, Jeunesse is glad for that decision. Her own mother always used to say, _Wait it out, cubs! It always gets better!_

For Jeunesse, it did. And so, for all the children of the world, it would.

 **IV.**  
Decades ago, the Grand Lady of the Brightest Sovereignty challenged an angel, and the beast pierced her torso with a single arrow. Even today, the wound bleeds ceaselessly, pooling around the Grand Lady’s navel. It throbs with an ache that twists and writhes in her mind. It is untouchable, unhealable, an injury to the soul itself.

Angels, you see, do not know mercy or death. Both lie beyond their understanding.

But what would fell a lower creature has only weakened Koltirra Lattar. When she must rest, she simply disperses her true body into a thousand moths and flocks atop the Brightest Manor’s thirteen spires. There, they wait—she waits. In a sea of grey wings and placidly twitching antennae, Koltirra’s moths contemplate the Sovereignty, and motherhood, and love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY:** Spooky scary Splendid. They've been in the background since day one, practically, so I'm excited to get to them finally. Ditto with Kirra's mothers, Koltirra Lattar and Tirrot Riktor; they were going to have their own novella, but I don't think we'll need it in the end (and fuck if it wouldn't take me six years to complete at this rate). Their story is suitable for memories and conversation, I think.
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨


	6. HONOR

**I.**  
Across the globe, we are told, all people fear the soldiers of Althussant.

Their skill is lacking. The Althussians, we mean. Their skill and their armor and weaponry, which, piecemeal, rusts in their hands—all lacking. When the world stepped forward to take up muskets and rifles, the Althussians refused with bucklers at their sides.

But:

They have those _beings._ Those creatures. Spirits, they call them. Silver-scented ghosts that bend to the wills of the Althussian warpriests, that sometimes reside in soldiers’ broadswords. Glittering, grinning things, intangible, burning scars across entire realms.

And because of those spirits, they have no honor, those Althussians. They fall upon civilian towns like locusts; they rage against elders and children. They snuff out the injured and the dying, a tidal wave to a candle’s flame. 

For that reason—their barbarism—Althussant continues to thrive. For that reason, other nations pay for the privilege to unloose their horrid soldiers on the battlefield.

Or so we are told.

 **II.**  
Sir Galien the Redwood watches the houseboats bobbing on the Saintsborne, and the moon bobbing on the houseboats.

 _So this,_ he thinks, _is the Dovetide neighborhood. That courtesan lives here—Claudine, was it?_

The Saintsborne waters lap gently in response. He leans over the promenade wall, the warhammer on his back heavy and wet.

He doesn’t recall conception having been an option, last spring at the rose-rooms. But then, he doesn’t recall much at all about that night. Nothing, actually. Except that Claudine was pale and round and fearless, as he liked them. Maybe she asked, maybe he accepted. 

Then the talk reached him. 

Apparently he has a child with this Claudine. A sickly little girl—or had the lads said a boy?

Sir Galien supposes it doesn’t matter in the end. Only honor matters. He tells himself to find Claudine. To do the right thing. To provide for the mite. He says it out loud to the river and to the unlit streets.

The wet warhammer begins to mumble. He lets it, for a moment.

And after that moment, Sir Galien thinks, suddenly, fearsomely: _No, no. What could I give a child? What could anyone do with a too-tall beast of a father? With a weapon that chatters endlessly, endlessly, for its share of bone and—_

“Hush,” Sir Galien tells the hammer as he stalks away into the dark, back into the city. “Or I will toss you into the sea where you belong.”

He leaves the river, and the moon, and the bobbing houseboats.

 **III.**  
The werewolf Jeunesse Belrose spots her mate’s idiot ram crusading on the other side of the Saintsborne at least once a week. His golden wool glistening, he accompanies small children across roads; he carries ladies over puddles; he stands watch over the belongings of vagrants until they return to their begging spots.

It’s all very _gallant._

One day, Jeunesse corners the creature as he grazes with his aunts and sisters.

“Ah! Why not help out, Lady Belrose?” he asks.

“You are no knight. And don’t call me that.”

“Your kind lives in packs, no? Yes? Exquisite! I live in a herd: it’s much the same, except the whole world is my herd. Would you not help your pack?”

“No one in this city is a part of my pack. Or yours.”

“They could be. Why not?”

“You’ll die thinking that way.”

“Someone must.”

 **IV.**  
“You utter lizard. You can’t just _tell_ someone that. Especially not a pregnant someone,” laments Galien Tarrou.

“She _is_ round, Sir Farmer,” the dragon Amaderu replies. Even in his man-form, he looks devious, reptilian. “Our queen is radiant, and I am proud of her indeed. But she is also round. I was being honest. And she laughed, so I imagine it was appreciated.”

The two royal consorts linger outside their shared chambers.

“Honest my arse,” Galien says. “You’re being—”

“What? Dishonorable?” The dragon grins. “Tell me. What use is honor? What use are petty lies?”

“I did not marry the queen to debate philosophy with a dragon.”

“I did not marry the queen to also obtain a farmer. But here we are, hm?”

Bickering, they walk toward the gardens side by side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY:** Lore, and knights, and banter. Three of the things I love best.
> 
> Big SecStar updates coming soon!
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨


	7. CHILDREN

**I.**  
The Althussians often say that while nobles have heirs, commoners have children. Marlesse de la Mer and Valériane de la Rue—two of the current queen’s favorites—do not have either. As unlanded nobles, they lack estates. They possess little real wealth. Even the most dimwitted courtier sees the uselessness in bringing small humans into the world with nothing to give them.

Luckily, the two have never wanted to go about the business of parenthood. For one, Marlesse helped raise three younger brothers; this has been enough for her for a lifetime. For another, Valériane still remembers Kaamin, still remembers the hard stares that buffeted her parents because of her...

When they meet at the end of the week, Marlesse and Valériane sometimes kiss for hours, gratitude carrying them until dawn.

 **II.**  
So far as linguists can tell, the Sovereign language has lacked terminology to distinguish certain relationships for centuries. To the Sovereign folk, there are friends and even best friends, and individual family members, yes. But marriage, for a long time, was a foreign concept to them—marriage and monogamy.

Then the Church of the Grey arrived. The words _wife_ and _husband_ the priests took from nearby Althussant, where such designations matter: _mari_ and _femme._ Before that, however, the Sovereign simply had _kolti,_ beloved, for a partner on whom you have hooked your life like an an old, warm, sweet-smelling coat on a rack.

 **III.**  
Incidentally, _kolti_ is also a glyph used in Sovereign names. Koltirra Lattar, the current Grand Lady of the Brightest Sovereignty—her first name means _beloved one._ It was a name her mother, Laroti, had given to her as a child.

Koltirra killed Laroti sixty years later.

 **IV.**  
The shepherdess Hannah Lestrange decided she loved her werewolf almost a decade ago, but knew it would be an uphill battle. _The_ uphill battle of her life, possibly. 

As it turns out, Hannah spends a lot of her time with Jeunesse annoyed. In the caravan, by the Saintsbourne, among the low grasses of the city park where Hannah has unceremoniously dragged her flock, just to be with Jeunesse…

Each moment, Hannah looks over at the wolf and scowls, because she can’t do a damn thing to make Jeunesse happy.

Jeunesse has hurts, years and years of them, compounded on each other. She has lost mates and children and her mother and brother, all before the age of forty-five. She sleeps little and watches the moon and the river and growls if Hannah gets, as Jeunesse says, _too cozy_ in the caravan. Loneliness sticks to her like sewer-stench.

So sometimes Hannah says: “I also wanted children, years ago. Still kinda do. But feels like it’s too late now.”

Or sometimes Hannah says: “Eat any good roadkill lately?”

She receives nothing but silence in response. At some point, though, Jeunesse Belrose will _want_ to heal. This Hannah knows. 

All she has to do now is wait for it.

 **V.**  
The queen tells Amaderu that she is pregnant, and he goes about his day at first, empty-minded. Then—as the sun sets—the idea really seeps into him, as rainwater into soil.

 _He_ did that. Well: he and the farmer and the queen.

Amaderu sits at the top of Quellheart Keep in reptilian form, his tail curled around his body.

When he was a real dragon, a _true_ dragon that lived on the side of a mountain, he observed (and ate) many animals, some of them gravid. Mating, to him, is not a novel concept. 

But dragons—they do not reproduce; they are all siblings, and have none of the requisite parts in dragon-shape to do so, anyway. Amaderu never considered the act desirable until he began taking on the skin of a man. Suddenly, he’d been flooded with all those emotions, those urges...

He breathes deep. Smoke flutters up from his nostrils, and he thinks: _What will the child look like? Sound like? Act like?_

There are so many more layers to love than he expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY:** If you're reading this in November or December of 2020, this is the last thing I posted until taking a month off. I'll be back in January 2021 to continue (and hopefully finish) ["The Tale of Young Dust"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27462214/chapters/67141417) and ["Twelve Skybound Saints."](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25420378/chapters/61649191)
> 
> Until then, I'm doing my annual reread to ensure all the stories make sense together...and writing hella Wiki pages. See you in a bit!
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨


	8. VALÉRIANE & MARLESSE

**I.**  
“I thought maybe it was strange I got to wear a, you know, _symbol of our love_ and all that, but you didn’t,” the botanist says. “And I rather like the idea of you walking around with something on you that’s a reminder of...everything we are, if that makes sense.”

Chuckling, her wife the guard replies: “I do need reminding. You know me—I forget my own name sometimes.”

“Oh, stop, you. Anyway, I didn’t imagine you were a ring person, so...”

The botanist holds two necklaces of green jade before her. One is noticeably shorter than the other. Both gleam even in the murk of twilight, the beads spiraling with light as the blushing guard cranes her head to peer closer.

Says the botanist, sheepishly looking away, “I hope it’s alright that I—but of course it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission, I always say—”

She finds herself suddenly lifted into her wife’s arms. 

**II.**  
(When the guard wears her end of the split pendant, it hangs between her breasts, close to her heart. The botanist, upon seeing this, only groans: “Ugh, now it really _is_ symbolic. I take it back.” For her thoughts, she receives many kisses.)

 **III.**  
“I suppose there’s no sense in children for you two, but I imagine you’ll get to putting a few together at some point,” says Queen Alexandrine, laughing quietly over her coffee.

She and Valériane chat over breakfast once a week, every Tuesday, on a strict schedule. Despite their respective royal duties keeping them occupied, Alexandrine always needs to know how her sister fares. Out of genuine concern, of course, and more than a little out of nosiness.

“For conception—the fire method worked best for us, but of course, we are a special case,” Alexandrine says matter-of-factly, referring to her husbands. “There’s also the blood method, the runic method—Valériane! Focus. By the four winds, you are such a child sometimes.”

“Ah? Ah.” The botanist stares up at the ceiling of Alexandrine’s private chambers, rubbing the back of her neck. She looks vaguely nauseated, vaguely embarrassed. Then—after a long, shaky breath—she seems to compose herself into something fierce. Something _noble._

Alexandrine smiles across her cup.

Valériane says, “I’m going to tell you right now that neither of us want...heirs. There is nothing to inherit. But even if Marlesse and I had assets. Land. We’re not interested, not ever.” Her jaw clenched, Valériane meets the queen’s eyes. “If you give me issues about this, Sandrine, I will leave this country and never come back. Mark my words.”

“No need for exile, darling. I got ahead of myself. Assuming. Daydreaming about the girls having a gaggle of cousins big and small...but, in the end, it affects none of us. This is your choice to make with your wife, and yours alone.”

“Yes. Yes, it is, thank you.” 

The botanist stares down at her coffee and then—with all the suddenness of a summer downpour—sobs. Alexandrine knows it well, has known it for more than a decade: these are not tears of despair, but of overwhelming relief. She reaches out and holds her sister’s calloused hand.

 **IV.**  
When Marlesse falls deep into the past, Valériane never finds herself annoyed or angry, not in the least—because for Valériane there is only duty. She doesn’t waste time navel-gazing about her wife’s war trauma; she doesn’t dwell on the unfair intensity of Marlesse’s flashbacks. She only thinks: _I married this woman and I love her and that means I take care of her._

Each time it happens, Valériane convinces Marlesse to drink strong valerian tea—begs her, if she must. The tea quiets her wife’s mind and the ghost-soldiers that live there, and the guard sleeps, fitfully.

Each time it happens, she wipes Marlesse down with a cool cloth. Caresses the inside of her wife’s arms, her collarbone, her neck. Marvels at her wife’s strength, at the tension in her flesh relaxing under Valériane’s touch.

Each time it happens, Marlesse whimpers, “Please, don’t hurt them, don’t hurt them.” And Valériane whispers back, “I won’t, my love, I won’t.”

Each time it happens, Valériane drops a stool by her cot—where Marlesse sprawls out to rest—and she watches. Waits. Counts Marlesse’s scars. Kisses her forehead, coming away with the salt of sweat on her lips.

Sometimes the botanist curls up next to her wife and dozes off, expecting to be awoken by screams or panicked grasping. But—sometimes—Marlesse drifts back to the present gently, like a light breeze. She says, grinning through watery sniffles, “Well, I must look a mess.” And Valériane tells her she doesn’t, because there is nothing quite like seeing the sun after such a long night.

 **V.**  
When Valériane falls into melancholy, Marlesse never finds herself annoyed or angry, not in the least—because where would she direct such emotions? Valériane can’t help her affliction, and the melancholy itself doesn’t care. Instead, Marlesse propels herself with faith: in her own abilities, in her wife. In the strength of their love, which is often so breathtaking it almost feels divine.

She fetches Valériane’s meals: light and easy food. Soups, stews. Chopped, roasted carrots and delicate meats. Sustenance to keep up her strength and weight.

She draws baths for her. In the summer, she lightly wipes the sweat from Valériane’s brow and shoulders. In the winter, she wraps Valériane in a warm blanket soon after.

She has memorized all of Valériane’s daily tinctures and—what was the word?— _medications._ She measures them out, monitors her wife as she takes them, rests easy as Valériane does.

She lets Valériane sleep on the floor, where her wife feels she belongs. 

Sometimes, Marlesse sleeps on the floor, too, if only for the moments when Valériane awakens next to her, lucid and bright-eyed. The botanist always says something akin to, “I had a dream that the stars cracked open like glass and...oh, it’s a stupid, stupid Kaaminan thing. How terrible was I this time?” And Marlesse, drawing her close, tells her she wasn’t terrible, not at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY:** Had a few of these lying around that I never posted, so I edited them together in between working on the next bits of the zodiac and Dust stories. Also, I'm gay.
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨


	9. ALEXANDRINE & VALÉRIANE

**I.**  
We could write a hundred thousand theses about Queen Alexandrine of Althussant and her botanist, the elusive Valériane de la Rue. But their friendship has always charmed us with its simplicity.

Alexandrine wanted someone to protect, and Valériane needed protecting—an advocate, a teacher.

Valériane wanted a patron, and Alexandrine needed a servant—as well as a sister to humble her.

Both are legendarily stubborn. Both fear their own fragility. 

Neither had ever called anyone _friend._

 **II.**  
As children of fourteen, they share a bed, the princess and the Kaaminan orphan.

“Can you sleep?” asks Alexandrine.

“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?” Valériane responds, her voice thick with exhaustion.

“Don’t be smart. Do you know any lullabies? Maybe from your old country? Even if I don’t understand it, I’d like to hear it.”

“One. About a garden.”

“That sounds lovely—”

“A wildfire licks it clean, and a gardener saves only the tallest flowers, the brightest ones, the ones that dance and sing. And after the fire, he turns them into flower crowns for his neighbors. Everyone’s so happy, they forget about the fire.”

“That, ah, sounds less lovely.”

“And no one remembers the ashes of the flowers that died. That’s...that’s how it ends. Something like...‘and not a single tear fell for the weeds,’ I guess is how you’d put it.”

A long pause lingers between them.

“I imagine I shouldn’t ask about your old country ever again,” Alexandrine murmurs.

“No.”

 **III.**  
“Are you the queen’s little pet?” the marquis inquires.

It is the day of Alexandrine’s coronation. Highborn folk crowd into the throne room, their voices flickering with the delight of gossip. Valériane—a noble in title only—presses her back against a window far from the throng. She is here for Alexandrine exclusively. She ensures her expression shows it. 

And yet: this marquis, hovering over her with a sneer she wishes she could tear off his jaws. Time has made her angry, and time has made her brave.

“Oh, yes,” Valériane tells him, avoiding his eyes. “I bite, too.”

 **IV.**  
Later, at the grand feast, the marquis converses with the new queen. He says: “One often destroys dogs that bite, no?”

Alexandrine smiles beatifically over her roast. “Not before the dog destroys you.”

 **V.**  
“The apothecary we called in from the city—they told me she should recover,” Marlesse de la Mer reports. “They’ve seen cases like this before...they suggested that we wait a few days for her blood to clear. She’ll wake, Your Majesty.”

They stand, royal and servant, on a balcony overlooking the Saintsborne. 

“And you are positive this was self-inflicted.” Relief dissolves within the queen. “I could name dozens who want Valériane dead. Perhaps not actively, but—”

“Yes. No evidence of a break-in.”

“In the meantime?”

“I have a few recruits providing water to her on a rotating basis. And checking her bedding. Recruits I trust. Though only I have the key to the Blood Tower...as you requested.”

“Thank you, darling.” Alexandrine tries desperately to put on her most sympathetic smile. She fails, and finally meets her chief’s gaze, her jaw clenched. “And—Marlesse? Remember what I said about masks.”

Like a beaten cliffside, all at once Marlesse crumbles against the wall. Tearful, Alexandrine kneels down, wrapping her cape around the massive woman as best she can.

“There will be a time for strength, and you will need it. But for now…” 

“I know—I know…”

“For now,” the queen says, “let it out—so she doesn’t have to see it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY:** Another few bits I discovered in my Google Drive and decided to edit into decency. I'm almost at max cap on my Drive and finding a lot of old Starfall stuff while doing The Big Deletes, so you may see new chapters of this between everything else.
> 
> Anyway, I'm surprised I never published #5, because it explains in-universe why Marlesse is so stoic in ["The Botanist's Most Important Failure"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21990349) but not anywhere else. Eventually, she learned to take the mask off in front of Val...but not at that point.
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨


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